Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard twice, every Friday – Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 230: Jean Michel Bernard – Generique Stephane ++ Destroyer – Leave Me Alone (New Order) ++ Trailer Trash Tracys – Candy Girl ++ White Hinterland – Requiem Pour Un Con ++ The Beach Boys – Unknown Harmony ++ Atlas Sound – Recent Bedroom ++ Galaxie 500 – Ceremony (New Order) ++ No Joy – Heedless ++ Girls – Hellhole Ratrace ++ The Art Museums – So Your Baby Doesn’t Love You Anymore ++ Cass McCombs – I Went To The Hospital ++ Dirty Three w/ Cat Power – Great Waves ++ Fugazi – Sweet And Low ++ Cloud Nothings – No Future/No Past ++ Reigning Sound – Stormy Weather ++ The Rock*A*Teens – Black Metal Scars ++ Bleached – Dazed ++ The Strange Boys – Be Brave ++ Devendra Banhart & Jana Hunter – A Bright-Ass Light ++ Father John Misty & Phosphorescent – I Would Love You ++ Yo La Tengo – Speeding Motorcycle ++ Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers – You’re the One for Me ++ Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Seedling ++ Destroyer – Your Blues ++ Merit Hemmingson – Brudmarsch efter Florsen i Burs ++ Broadcast – Long Was The Year (Black Session) ++ Broadcast – Where Youth And Laughter Go (Black Session)++ Broadcast -  Message From Home (Black Session) ++ Broadcast -  Echo’s Answer (Black Session) ++ Björk – Human Behaviour ++ Warpaint – Warpaint ++ Strand of Oaks – When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die

*You can listen, for free, online with the SIRIUS three day trial — just submit an email address and they will send you a password.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Before Wit’s End, before Catacombs and before the near universal ‘year-end list’ acclaim, Cass McCombs quietly released A in 2004 via the Monitor label. I’ve been reintroducing the album piecemeal into my radio show over the past few months. Revisit A’s opening pair of tracks below.

MP3: Cass McCombs :: I Went To The Hospital
MP3: Cass McCombs :: Bobby, King of Boys Town

Bill Fay is a name that has crept back into the underground consciousness in recent years due to some unexpected word-of-mouth publicity culminating in a series of commendable reissues of the artist’s work. Going into Time of the Last Persecution, however, I was unaware of such recent windfalls.

Initially I was a bit uncertain as to Fay’s songwriting, which is quite strong in exploring the author’s religious ideologies, but that hurdle was quickly cleared. The truth is that Fay does not preach or praise so much as pray for understanding and salvation; here is the same tortured spirituality that haunts such landmark recordings as Satan Is Real or Dave Bixby’s Ode To Quetzlcoatl. For example, if it were not for the cracked desperation in Fay’s voice, a line like “Satan is in the garden shed, he’d like to screw you all” might come off as ridiculous. As it stands, however, it is both surreal and terrifying. Fay invokes all sorts of twisted black imagery here, from mental collapse to ecological disaster and chemical warfare. The music is a dynamic tapestry of melancholy piano tracks and heavy psychedelic guitars, often exploding into free-jazz inspired chaos as in the incredible title track. Guitarist Ray Russell is sure to blow your mind over the course of Persecution, capable of shifting between savory Nashville accents and volatile Sharrockian squalls. Horn players Tony Roberts, Nick Evans and Bud Parkes help to underscore the occasional free aspects here – this is the kind of jazz-rock fusion I’ve always hoped to hear. Mahavishnu, eat your heart out.

Most of the time, however, the sound of The Last Persecution is closer to Ernie Graham’s equally underrated self-titled record in that it blends elements of British folk-rock with imported American weariness. Alan Rushton and Daryl Runswick make for a crisp rhythm section whose propensity for laid-back grooves is not too far removed from Rick Danko and Levon Helm’s work in The Band. Runswick’s melodic playing on “Dust Filled Room” is particularly strong, though I’m surprised to find that his own artistic background actually extends the record’s free-jazz connections: he has spent time with Ornette Coleman, of all people. Which is all to say that these are some serious musicians, and even if you have trouble latching onto Fay’s songwriting or reedy voice there’s an entire world of delicacies to be tried within the music. Just take a listen to the frenzied coda to “Release Is In the Eye,” with Russell painting lightning all up and down his fretboard as the rhythm section latches on to a droning freight-train pattern.

Time of the Last Persecution is a unique and heartfelt statement of a man searching through the darkness and while it may not be easy listening, its grooves are full of rewards for the dedicated listener. As Fay himself writes in the reissue’s liner notes, “I worry to an extent about its ‘heaviness’ circulating out there in a small way, but at the same time I feel there’s maybe something of a therapeutic release in some of the intensity of the music,” which is about as fitting a description as I could ever think to assign. words/ n rayne

MP3: Bill Fay :: Release Is in the Eye
MP3: Bill Fay :: Time of the Last Persecution

As I mentioned earlier in the month, the Dirty Three have a new LP dropping in February. My copy has been on repeat, but revisiting the Melbourne trio’s last output – 2005′s Cinder – I was reminded how I used to imagine what the album’s cornerstone track, “Great Waves,” would sound like with Will Oldham handling the vocals in place of Chan Marshall (yes, I think about this sort of thing). Aesthetically the fit seems perfect.

MP3: The Dirty Three w/ Chan Marshall :: Great Waves

Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas, his 12th studio album, will be released a week from today. If I might I offer a suggestion, listen to the album cold – sans any outside editorial critique. You’ll be glad you did…it’s worth it.

You can stream to the record, in its entirety, here.

Serge Gainsbourg cut “Requiem pour un Con” in 1968 for Jean Gabin’s film Le Pacha (see clip below). Forty years later Casey Dienel, under the nom de tune, White Hinterland, released the Francophone, six song, Luniculaire ep. I’ve been revisiting the collection for the first time since its release – specifically Hinterland’s take on “Requiem.” In place of the studied cool of the Gainsbourg original, the band employs a damaged, almost junkyard rendering a la Tom Waits.

MP3: White Hinterland :: Requiem pour un Con (Serge Gainsbourg)

This shit is intense. My friend Ryan happened upon Sandy Nassan’s Just Guitar while digging at Folk Arts Records in San Diego a few weeks back. Released in 1970, the opening track, “Jam,” is just that. Clocking it at over 16 minutes, Ryan described it as: “being drawn into the most tense moment of the most suspenseful movie you’ve ever seen – it’s like Sandy Bull on steroids and it doesn’t let up. It’s not easy music, but it’s genuine expression. You know it the first time the guitar rests and Nassan lets loose that sigh in the empty space – he’s really going for it, he’s chasing something. This isn’t jazz – there’s no real melody to restate, no trading bars – it’s just one dude in conversation with some other unseen person/place/power for about 17 minutes, and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping.” Indeed.

MP3: Sandy Nassan :: Jam

RE: Dan Bejar. The latest Mojo compilation to hit newsstands is a disc comprised of reinterpretations of New Order’s second LP, 1983′s Power, Corruption & Lies. The covers range from the fairly catholic to wholly re-imagined versions, with the key takeaway being Destroyer’s take on the original album’s eighth and final track, “Leave Me Alone.”

MP3: Destroyer :: Leave Me Alone (New Order)

How’s your French? I watched this twice last night before going out — 1969 footage from a French documentary on the Stax and Muscle Shoals sound. The description bills its 11 minutes as featuring “Brook Benton & Booker T. & The MGs recording session…and The The Mar-keys working out a horn arrangement” but what your really seeing is a rare view into one of the most fertile eras of 20th century American music. Hat tip to Scottie Diablo for the tip and Bedazzled for the upload.

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard twice, every Friday – Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 229: Jean Michel Bernard – Generique Stephane ++ The Damned – New Rose ++ Bleached – Think Of You ++ Bass Drum of Death – Nerve Jamming ++ Ty Segall – Girlfriend ++ Black Keys – Thickfreakness ++ Jeff The Brotherhood – Health And Strength (Heavy Version) ++ The Soft Pack – Fences ++ Lower Dens – Brains ++ Pet Politics – The Ghost Mary And Her Friends ++ Le Loops – Beach Town ++ Atlas Sound – So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad) ++ Indian Wars – If You Want Me ++ Jacuzzi Boys – Island Avenue ++ Spacemen 3 – Feel So Good ++ Surf City – Autumn ++ Harlem – Come Back Jonee (Devo) ++Benoit Pioulard – Shouting Distance ++ The Walkmen – Look Out The Window ++ The Allah-Las – Catamaran ++David Vandervelde – Nothin’ No ++ The Besnard Lakes – Devastation ++ The Dirty Three feat. Cat Power – Great Waves ++ Merit Hemmingson – Brudmarsch efter Florsen i Burs ++ Broadcast – Long Was The Year ++ Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Seedling ++ Arthur Verocai – Sylvia ++ Cass McCombs - I Went To The Hospital ++ Girls – Hellhole Ratrace ++ Michael Kiwanuka – Tell Me A Tale ++ King Khan & The Shrines – Welfare Bread ++ Deadboy & The Elephantmen – Break It Off ++ The Breeders – Only In 3′s

*You can listen, for free, online with the SIRIUS three day trial — just submit an email address and they will send you a password.
__________________________________________________________________________________